This is a personal note. It is on my blog and reflects my very personal opinion. I am writing this upfront because while reading this some may get upset and jump to judgement. That's the reader's choice. I am not writing this to win hearts.
On November 8th, 2016, as I sat watching the results roll in, I was very disappointed, at times distraught. I had my head in my hands, on my friends' couch, feeling that the floor under me was giving way. I could not believe this was happening to America. In a strange way I could compare the feeling to 9/11 when I watched on live TV the second tower got hit. It felt like a personal blow, and took the wind out of me. I was in shock for a long time. And on the early hours of Wednesday this week, I somehow felt the same; a deep feeling of loss and shock and disbelief and surprise that humans can be so self destructive. For a while, I found deep aversion arising from me, wanting to not accept the results, trying to find ways to run away, wishing that some calamity strikes and all this goes away. I did not want this outcome. I came home, hugged my two dogs and cuddled with them all night, sleeping very badly, tossing and turning all night, restless. Next morning I had two very important client meetings and I had to be "on" for those. My livelihood was at stake, I had to get up and do my job.
Few days have passed since. And I have seen the surge of emotions on social media and I can resonate with the anguish being felt by the millions of people who gave Hillary the popular vote win, but not the presidency. There is also a surge of hate speech, of accusations, anger, cries of betrayal, of trying to blame someone or something, of trying to find reasons and answers as to why this happened. And there is fear that is like a tornado sweeping through the nation right now, almost a paranoia - will this become a repeat of fascism, rise of dictatorship, collapse of the economy, what about the environment, Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, funding for infrastructure, trade relations with the world, hard-fought LGBTQ rights, abortion rights, race marginalization, religious persecution, apartheid, internment camps, funding for science and technology, education decline, legitimization of sexual assault and rape, women's rights and women's safety... The list is long, people are scared.
Am I scared? Yes, a little. I profess to be scared because I am not so developed yet to have been able to discard all fear and become fearless. I am still human and fear is a basic response. But I also see this other response to fear - HOPE. And I have a fundamental problem with Hope. I think that is the wrong response. Hope actually prevents us from accepting the reality as it is. And it puts a sheen of golden future on our minds and tries to numb us. That is not right. I don't believe in hope. I think it is a useless social construct and because we have been listening to this message of hope all our lives, ever since we were a little child in our mother's arms, we find ourselves going for that bandaid everytime we feel a crisis is upon us. I think we need to abandon hope and learn to accept reality, as it is.
The electorate has spoken. We live in a democracy and it is what we have chosen to be our government style. The candidate has been elected fair and square by the system we have put together. It is not right to whine and cry when I did not get the result I wanted. If we feel the system is flawed then we have to put things in motion to change it. Going on a rampage through the cities and destroying other people's property and businesses is not the adult response, this is akin to throwing tantrums like a two year old. Accept the results as is, America. Don't Hope, Work!
The bottomline is that Hillary won the popular vote by 0.2% (47.7% Hillary vs. 47.5% Trump), that is not a big margin. Accept this truth, even if it hurts, it is true. Also, 44.4% of the electorate sat out this election, they did not care to cast their vote! If you go rampaging the streets and crying foul about the system, I say you are not being in your senses. Be an adult, get to work. You have an energy that has arisen in you, preserve that. Do not waste it on messages on social media, or looting other peoples' properties, or burning the flag or effigies or such things. Don't hope that everything will get better. Control yourself, observe the fire in you, channel it wisely into effective work. How you behave yourself, how you pull yourself together and work moving forward will be what will bring the 44.4% that sat out to the polls. So, control yourself, don't fly off the handle with every incendiary spark from the media! Don't be so paranoid either, after eight years in office, Obama was not able to close Guantanamo, and that was in his 100-day agenda too. So, be smart, be wise, calm down, don't forget, don't get complacent, get to work.
The best analogy I can give is from my business life. We work hard for every contract we win. No one really hands it to us. For every RFP that hits the street, we try to know about it months and years in advance, we work with the client and sometimes help them through the process, we also position ourselves with the client at several levels of the client organization over and over again. Once the RFP hits the street, we put our best effort in it and spend a lot of time and money to create the best proposal we can. Then after waiting for what seems like ages, we find out we lost; sometimes to a vague little firm in Texas who doesn't even have a local presence! We are stunned! How did this happen? Where did we go wrong? We did exactly the right things, and most of all we cared deeply for the client and their vision and had put together the most effective and efficient approach to get their job done. And more than betrayal, we feel extremely sorry for the client to have made such a senseless decision. But we respect their decision, it was theirs to make. If they do not see and understand what is beneficial to them, there is nothing else we can do. Protesting, or crying, or saying terrible things, or deciding not to work with that client anymore do not get us anywhere. We just need to accept the decision as is and move forward. But you know what, we will never again take any little thing for granted. We will be overly cautious with every step forward. We will protect ourselves, we will keep our expectations at check, we will channel the grief and sadness and energy that has arisen in us towards carefully crafting the strategy for the next task at hand, with wisdom, with insight.
Being a political leader is very difficult. I have several friends in local government, and many others who are leaders in public agencies, public servants/bureaucrats. On a daily basis I see them struggle to get the job done, they climb the mountains everyday. It is very hard. Are there immoral and self-serving people who got elected? Yes, there are some. Are they using the system to get their pockets filled, some try and even succeed for a while, yes! Then they mess up, there is a scandal, and they are elected out of office. Are there lazy public agency workers who take their retirement and job as secure and for granted, and do not function, yes there are some. But rarely do those people get to stay for long at the top of the system, they are usually moved over to a position where they are irritating, but cannot cause too much of trouble or be in the way of things getting done. Does the government system work? I say, yes. Is it slow? Most of the time, yes. Is it efficient? Not all the time. Does it work for the benefit of the many? Most of the time. But you know what, the very system that is slow and hard to move and very difficult is what is good at times like this. It can prevent the bad stuff from happening as much as block the good stuff. It is the safety valve. Like it or not, that is what it is! The reality. Do you want to change it? Be very careful for what you want. If you want to punch holes in the fabric of the system to make sure more things pass through, remember the good and the bad will pass through. Make sure you modulate the pore sizes of the punch such that the bad stuff gets held off, make sure you do not punch too many holes too. Work with the system, slowly and surely, and more importantly, wisely.
Focus at least half of your energy to protect yourself. If you are afraid of your safety and of your freedoms being taken away, protect yourself the best way you can. Use the system to your advantage. For every issue, raise a flag. Make complaints, write to officials, stand up an walk, Be extremely aware of your surroundings, don't take anything for granted. There is no space for being stunned anymore, to be surprised as to how someone had the audacity to do/propose whatever they are doing. Have your radar on, and at the first smell or inkling of something that may go amiss, take note, take action. Wise action. Do not let anyone dent your freedoms. That is what America stands for. Do whatever it takes, without resorting to violence, to counter that force. If they are going to chip away your rights, those you have bled to secure, you can't just let them take it away! Like all the great leaders before us, channel the energy and work tirelessly. When they imprisoned Mandela for 27 years, do you think it was a casual walk in the park everyday? He gathered his energy and made his resolution even stronger, and very wisely, one person at a time worked his way through the process. He did not take anything or anyone for granted. He worked every day, breaking rocks and firming his resolution. That's what we have to do. And you know what, the 44.4% that sat out the election is actually looking for a leadership that is wise.
On election night, I was having dinner with a very wise lady. She told me - "People tell you who they are all the time. You have to learn to listen and believe them." It is so true. When I look back at many of my disappointments with people in life, I can clearly see that I did not listen and believe them when they clearly told me who they were, sometimes on the first meeting. It was me who did not want to accept, because I wanted an alternate reality to be true, I had a dream world where I wanted these people to change and fit in. That is the Hope-world, completely unreal. Same thing here. President-elect has clearly told us who he is. We need to accept him, exactly for who he is. Once we can accept that, we know what we are in for. We can then figure our strategies to make sure we are safe, and everything we care for is safe. And do not get complacent, be on guard all the time. At times it may feel that everything is okay, and that may incite you to lay your guard down. Don't do that. Keep on a lookout, be aware of everything going on around you, stay vigilant, defend your freedoms. Make no compromises. What is rightfully yours, it is yours. Don't let anyone take it from you. Some people have pointed out, it took Hitler just two years to turn the country around and mess up everything. That's right. It did. Not only Hitler, every overthrow of every government throughout history has the same pattern. The leaders or the public was living in an alternate reality. When the British slowly broke down the monarchies in India and created the Empire, almost every king in each of India's little kingdoms were thinking that it happens to others, not to me. They were not vigilant, or aware when the first signs arose; and by the time they wanted to protect themselves, it was too late. This is exactly what the US need to be aware of. Be vigilant, every moment, protect your freedoms, and without resorting to mass hysteria and panic, compose yourself. Don't hope, work!
The Pied Piper of Hamelin has taken the rats to the mountain, do not let him take your children too!!
On November 8th, 2016, as I sat watching the results roll in, I was very disappointed, at times distraught. I had my head in my hands, on my friends' couch, feeling that the floor under me was giving way. I could not believe this was happening to America. In a strange way I could compare the feeling to 9/11 when I watched on live TV the second tower got hit. It felt like a personal blow, and took the wind out of me. I was in shock for a long time. And on the early hours of Wednesday this week, I somehow felt the same; a deep feeling of loss and shock and disbelief and surprise that humans can be so self destructive. For a while, I found deep aversion arising from me, wanting to not accept the results, trying to find ways to run away, wishing that some calamity strikes and all this goes away. I did not want this outcome. I came home, hugged my two dogs and cuddled with them all night, sleeping very badly, tossing and turning all night, restless. Next morning I had two very important client meetings and I had to be "on" for those. My livelihood was at stake, I had to get up and do my job.
Few days have passed since. And I have seen the surge of emotions on social media and I can resonate with the anguish being felt by the millions of people who gave Hillary the popular vote win, but not the presidency. There is also a surge of hate speech, of accusations, anger, cries of betrayal, of trying to blame someone or something, of trying to find reasons and answers as to why this happened. And there is fear that is like a tornado sweeping through the nation right now, almost a paranoia - will this become a repeat of fascism, rise of dictatorship, collapse of the economy, what about the environment, Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, funding for infrastructure, trade relations with the world, hard-fought LGBTQ rights, abortion rights, race marginalization, religious persecution, apartheid, internment camps, funding for science and technology, education decline, legitimization of sexual assault and rape, women's rights and women's safety... The list is long, people are scared.
Am I scared? Yes, a little. I profess to be scared because I am not so developed yet to have been able to discard all fear and become fearless. I am still human and fear is a basic response. But I also see this other response to fear - HOPE. And I have a fundamental problem with Hope. I think that is the wrong response. Hope actually prevents us from accepting the reality as it is. And it puts a sheen of golden future on our minds and tries to numb us. That is not right. I don't believe in hope. I think it is a useless social construct and because we have been listening to this message of hope all our lives, ever since we were a little child in our mother's arms, we find ourselves going for that bandaid everytime we feel a crisis is upon us. I think we need to abandon hope and learn to accept reality, as it is.
The electorate has spoken. We live in a democracy and it is what we have chosen to be our government style. The candidate has been elected fair and square by the system we have put together. It is not right to whine and cry when I did not get the result I wanted. If we feel the system is flawed then we have to put things in motion to change it. Going on a rampage through the cities and destroying other people's property and businesses is not the adult response, this is akin to throwing tantrums like a two year old. Accept the results as is, America. Don't Hope, Work!
The bottomline is that Hillary won the popular vote by 0.2% (47.7% Hillary vs. 47.5% Trump), that is not a big margin. Accept this truth, even if it hurts, it is true. Also, 44.4% of the electorate sat out this election, they did not care to cast their vote! If you go rampaging the streets and crying foul about the system, I say you are not being in your senses. Be an adult, get to work. You have an energy that has arisen in you, preserve that. Do not waste it on messages on social media, or looting other peoples' properties, or burning the flag or effigies or such things. Don't hope that everything will get better. Control yourself, observe the fire in you, channel it wisely into effective work. How you behave yourself, how you pull yourself together and work moving forward will be what will bring the 44.4% that sat out to the polls. So, control yourself, don't fly off the handle with every incendiary spark from the media! Don't be so paranoid either, after eight years in office, Obama was not able to close Guantanamo, and that was in his 100-day agenda too. So, be smart, be wise, calm down, don't forget, don't get complacent, get to work.
The best analogy I can give is from my business life. We work hard for every contract we win. No one really hands it to us. For every RFP that hits the street, we try to know about it months and years in advance, we work with the client and sometimes help them through the process, we also position ourselves with the client at several levels of the client organization over and over again. Once the RFP hits the street, we put our best effort in it and spend a lot of time and money to create the best proposal we can. Then after waiting for what seems like ages, we find out we lost; sometimes to a vague little firm in Texas who doesn't even have a local presence! We are stunned! How did this happen? Where did we go wrong? We did exactly the right things, and most of all we cared deeply for the client and their vision and had put together the most effective and efficient approach to get their job done. And more than betrayal, we feel extremely sorry for the client to have made such a senseless decision. But we respect their decision, it was theirs to make. If they do not see and understand what is beneficial to them, there is nothing else we can do. Protesting, or crying, or saying terrible things, or deciding not to work with that client anymore do not get us anywhere. We just need to accept the decision as is and move forward. But you know what, we will never again take any little thing for granted. We will be overly cautious with every step forward. We will protect ourselves, we will keep our expectations at check, we will channel the grief and sadness and energy that has arisen in us towards carefully crafting the strategy for the next task at hand, with wisdom, with insight.
Being a political leader is very difficult. I have several friends in local government, and many others who are leaders in public agencies, public servants/bureaucrats. On a daily basis I see them struggle to get the job done, they climb the mountains everyday. It is very hard. Are there immoral and self-serving people who got elected? Yes, there are some. Are they using the system to get their pockets filled, some try and even succeed for a while, yes! Then they mess up, there is a scandal, and they are elected out of office. Are there lazy public agency workers who take their retirement and job as secure and for granted, and do not function, yes there are some. But rarely do those people get to stay for long at the top of the system, they are usually moved over to a position where they are irritating, but cannot cause too much of trouble or be in the way of things getting done. Does the government system work? I say, yes. Is it slow? Most of the time, yes. Is it efficient? Not all the time. Does it work for the benefit of the many? Most of the time. But you know what, the very system that is slow and hard to move and very difficult is what is good at times like this. It can prevent the bad stuff from happening as much as block the good stuff. It is the safety valve. Like it or not, that is what it is! The reality. Do you want to change it? Be very careful for what you want. If you want to punch holes in the fabric of the system to make sure more things pass through, remember the good and the bad will pass through. Make sure you modulate the pore sizes of the punch such that the bad stuff gets held off, make sure you do not punch too many holes too. Work with the system, slowly and surely, and more importantly, wisely.
Focus at least half of your energy to protect yourself. If you are afraid of your safety and of your freedoms being taken away, protect yourself the best way you can. Use the system to your advantage. For every issue, raise a flag. Make complaints, write to officials, stand up an walk, Be extremely aware of your surroundings, don't take anything for granted. There is no space for being stunned anymore, to be surprised as to how someone had the audacity to do/propose whatever they are doing. Have your radar on, and at the first smell or inkling of something that may go amiss, take note, take action. Wise action. Do not let anyone dent your freedoms. That is what America stands for. Do whatever it takes, without resorting to violence, to counter that force. If they are going to chip away your rights, those you have bled to secure, you can't just let them take it away! Like all the great leaders before us, channel the energy and work tirelessly. When they imprisoned Mandela for 27 years, do you think it was a casual walk in the park everyday? He gathered his energy and made his resolution even stronger, and very wisely, one person at a time worked his way through the process. He did not take anything or anyone for granted. He worked every day, breaking rocks and firming his resolution. That's what we have to do. And you know what, the 44.4% that sat out the election is actually looking for a leadership that is wise.
On election night, I was having dinner with a very wise lady. She told me - "People tell you who they are all the time. You have to learn to listen and believe them." It is so true. When I look back at many of my disappointments with people in life, I can clearly see that I did not listen and believe them when they clearly told me who they were, sometimes on the first meeting. It was me who did not want to accept, because I wanted an alternate reality to be true, I had a dream world where I wanted these people to change and fit in. That is the Hope-world, completely unreal. Same thing here. President-elect has clearly told us who he is. We need to accept him, exactly for who he is. Once we can accept that, we know what we are in for. We can then figure our strategies to make sure we are safe, and everything we care for is safe. And do not get complacent, be on guard all the time. At times it may feel that everything is okay, and that may incite you to lay your guard down. Don't do that. Keep on a lookout, be aware of everything going on around you, stay vigilant, defend your freedoms. Make no compromises. What is rightfully yours, it is yours. Don't let anyone take it from you. Some people have pointed out, it took Hitler just two years to turn the country around and mess up everything. That's right. It did. Not only Hitler, every overthrow of every government throughout history has the same pattern. The leaders or the public was living in an alternate reality. When the British slowly broke down the monarchies in India and created the Empire, almost every king in each of India's little kingdoms were thinking that it happens to others, not to me. They were not vigilant, or aware when the first signs arose; and by the time they wanted to protect themselves, it was too late. This is exactly what the US need to be aware of. Be vigilant, every moment, protect your freedoms, and without resorting to mass hysteria and panic, compose yourself. Don't hope, work!
The Pied Piper of Hamelin has taken the rats to the mountain, do not let him take your children too!!
